A story of protecting the written word against a digital world threatening to destroy it. Michael Ashe, a Los Angeles antiquarian bookseller, must confront the fact that his once-thriving business is collapsing. Even librarians have turned their backs on books, while pouring money into electronic data. But Ashe refuses to admit defeat. He continues to hunt for rare tomes in Mexico City and Paris, while struggling with his loneliness and searching for a woman to love. Along the way he learns the startling story of the best-read man in France. A man who founded a great library to preserve knowledge against the ravishes of time. This revelation leads Ashe from mere attempts to save his own livelihood into a public battle to save the life of books themselves. A tale about the exotic and romantic world of international rare bookselling, and a cry of alarm about the demise of the printed book, the decline of reading, and the conflict between print and digital culture. Are we rushing into a post-literate world and a fade-out of human memory? Will even more books be "disappeared" into a Dark Archive? Only you, as a reader, can keep it from happening. "For those with a love of books, the libraries that house them, and a passion for keeping their physicality alive, Between Memory and Oblivion , is an absorbing, thought-provoking read." — STARRED REVIEW, BlueInk Review "The story has a nice romance to it with the main character looking for love and eventually finding it adding to his happiness in life. I really enjoyed both the concept and execution of this story."—Jenny McGregor, NetGalley (5/5) "Quietly devastating...the fragile magic of holding history in your hands." — NetGalley (5/5) "A quest from a personal struggle for survival into a passionate, public crusade to rescue the very soul of books from oblivion. Honors the tactile, serendipitous, and human aspects of book culture, contrasting them with the antiseptic efficiency of digitization. Asks whether the soul of a library, or a life, can survive if reduced to mere data. Gorgeous, exquisite prose, elaborately developed characters, and a conflict that hits home powerfully."—John Grossman, The Book Commentary (5/5). "A magnificent extra above and beyond the academic storm is Briscoe's erudite presentation of this hidden world, its history and its exquisiteness, along with the beauties of Paris, its restaurants, streets, and galleries; and of Central America's bungalows and beaches and, oh, the food and romance! I do not know if anything can stop Al's takeover of our culture, but I do know that Between Memory and Oblivion makes a magnificent argument for maintaining libraries, books, and reading itself."—Jon Michael Miller, Readers' Favorite (5/5) Peter Briscoe has had the pleasure not only of living with books as a reader but also of making them his life's work as a librarian and writer. For more than 30 years he built library collections at two universities. A specialist in collection development, book acquisitions, special collections, and preservation, he directed efforts that led to the purchase or donation of 1.5 million volumes from all over the world on nearly all subjects. He loved his job but increasingly worried about the fate of books and reading in a digital, post-literate world. Briscoe, who attained the rank of Distinguished Librarian at the University of California, Riverside, and subsequently that of Associate University Librarian, is now Emeritus. He is the author or co-author of five books, including a translation from the French of José Cabanis' novel, Night Games (1993), Reading the Map of Knowledge: The Art of Being a Librarian (2001), Mexico at the Hour of Combat (2012), and The Bookseller: Stories (2022).